Note 144 — Chapter IX

Ricotti, III., p. 208, quotes these authorities. Our account of the battle endeavours to reconcile the Urbino writers with the generally received facts. Muzio says above 40,000 men were engaged in it. Berni estimates the Count's force at eighty-three squadrons of horse and two thousand foot against ninety-six squadrons and thrice as many infantry; the killed he states at 500, and the wounded at the same number, chiefly on the side of Colleoni. The Ferrarese diarist, speaking of an engagement fought close to his capital, may be preferred to Machiavelli. He considers the loss on both sides at 500 killed, and 1000 mortally wounded, besides "above 1000 horses ripped up;" and mentions Saturday, the 23rd of July, as the date of the battle. Roscoe, in a succinct account of the campaign, cites three authorities for his facts, but two of these refer to points of unimportant detail (one of them quoting a recent writer, whose information is at second hand), while the third establishes a view entirely passed by in the text. I mention this in no spirit of cavilling, but to show the inutility of a system of copious and indiscriminate reference by foot-notes, which, without pretending to establish every momentous statement, constantly distracts attention from the continuous narrative. Corio, a contemporary at the court of Milan, has, by confusing his master's two visits to Florence, misrepresented this engagement as fought in 1471. He mentions some incidents of it, one of which, whether accurate or not, is characteristic of such battles. Federigo, towards the close of the conflict, meeting Alessandro Sforza, whose daughter he had married, but who then fought against him, exclaimed, "Oh, my lord and father! we have already done enough;" to which Sforza replied, "This I leave you to determine;" whereupon both commanders called off their troops. Another anecdote represents Galeazzo Maria as severely blaming the Count of Urbino for not securing a decided victory by a more vigorous onset; to which the latter replied he was nowise to blame, and would leave it to any one cognisant of the art of war to say if he had not proceeded after the rules of military tactics. But so little was the Duke satisfied with this plea, that, when the Count went afterwards to visit him at Milan, he threatened to decapitate him, and would have done so but for the intervention of his secretary Simonetta, a personal friend of Federigo. The latter, taking the hint, soon retired, and made the best of his way home. Notwithstanding Corio's authority, and Galeazzo Maria's impetuous temper, this story appears apocryphal: see our immediate context, p. 189.